Synthesis of high-density, large-diameter, and aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes by multiple-cycle growth methods.

A dense array of parallel single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) as the device channel can carry higher current, be more robust, and have smaller device-to-device variation, thus is more desirable for and compatible with applications in future highly integrated circuits when compared with single-tube devices. The density of the parallel SWNT arrays and the diameter of SWNTs both are key factors in the determination of the device performance. In this paper, we present a new multiple-cycle chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method to synthesize horizontally aligned arrays of SWNTs with densities of 20-40 SWNT/μm over large area and a diameter distribution of 2.4 ± 0.5 nm on the quartz surface based on a methanol/ethanol CVD method. The high nucleation efficiency of catalyst particles in multiple-cycle CVD processes has been demonstrated to be the main reason for the improvements in the density of SWNT arrays. More interestingly, we confirmed the existence of an etching effect, which strongly affects the final products in the multiple-cycle growth. This etching effect is likely the reason that only large-diameter SWNTs were obtained in the multiple-cycle CVD growth. Using these high-density and large-diameter nanotube arrays, two-terminal devices with back-gates were fabricated. The performances of these devices have been greatly improved in overall resistance and on-state current, which indicates these SWNT arrays have high potential for applications such as interconnects, high-frequency devices, and high-current transistors in future micro- or nanoelectronics.